An Error of Comedy
by eveninganna
Summary: "'Comedy of Errors' - noun; a situation so full of silly mistakes and problems that it is funny." An ongoing collection of Greek myth retellings, as short as they are ridiculous, both myth!canon and not. Rating subject to change.
1. Teenage Runaway

**This new fic is a collection of Greek myth retellings (myth!canon and not), all ridiculous and none to be taken seriously. Will be adding more as it suits my fancy, and thus shouldn't interfere with any more pressing fic updates/completions. **

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"Has anyone seen Persephone?" Apollo asked one morning after making a perfect foam leaf in his cappuccino.

"She's probably, like, frolicking in a meadow or something." Dionysus' tone was in no way patient, but Apollo chocked that up to the perpetual hangover he was nursing. "She loves meadows."

"You mean her _mother _loves meadows," Hermes corrected.

"Whatever."

"Yes," Apollo went on, "but Demeter usually brings her to big events; she never goes so far as to snub Zeus, let alone on his birthday, and neither Persephone nor Demeter was there last night."

"Well, one can only have so many birthdays," Hermes said. "There ought to be a statute of limitations or something."

"When you're married to Hera I imagine you'd want a formal excuse to get as wasted as possible as often as possible," Dionysus mused bitterly.

"Just because you hate Hera doesn't mean Zeus hates Hera," Hermes said, a tad condescendingly.

"Everyone hates Hera," Dionysus snapped.

"I believe something grave has happened," Apollo announced, ignoring Hermes and Dionysus, hand on hip, face directed rhapsodically toward the sun. "Something grave indeed."

"Well, when you find out what make sure to remind Seph that she owes me that hangover remedy of her mother's," Dionysus muttered, head buried in his hands.

"I'll make sure to–" Apollo stopped. "Wait. Why does she owe you?"

"Because I've been covering for her every night when she sneaks off to see that weird Underworld go–" Dionysus cut off suddenly, apparently registering his own words. "_Oh_. What? Wait."

This revelation was followed with a collective silence from the three young gods. That was, until Hermes spoke.

"Demeter gonna be _pissed_."

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	2. Still Into You

**Author's Notes: **Man, the Muses are so underrated. My headcanon is that they're simultaneously infatuated with Apollo and totally sick of his shit, which is just a recipe for greatness. Anyway, there'll probably be more of this type of entry for this fic.

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**OFFICIAL MUSE ARCHIVE**

**SECTION 4A: APOLLO'S IDEAS [SAMPLE]**

"_Catalogue of Women." _[recorded 600 B.C. - Muse of Epic Poetry, Calliope; **notes: **knowing him this is going to be _very _uncouth.]

"_Ain't nobody fresher than my motherfucking clique." _[recorded 78 B.C. - Muse of Song, Euterpe; **notes**: debate as to the definition of 'motherfucking', and until further information is acquired one must assume it means exactly what it sounds like it means. there is also question as to what 'fresher' means in such a context, and I can only assume it holds a different meaning than when applied to the state of mortal sustenance.]

"_Hamlet_." [recorded 120 A.D. - Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene; **notes**: I don't fucking know he just said "Hamlet" and told me to write it down. previous experience leads me to believe this will not end well, and will probably involve a young man talking to himself a lot in verse.]

"_Twerk_." [recorded 1100 A.D. - Muse of Dance, Terpsichore; **notes: **the current definition of 'twerk' is "a puny or insignificant person, generally male; a twerp", so I have actually no clue as to what he's getting at here.]

"_Pluto_." [recorded 1224 A.D. - Muse of Astronomy, Urania; **notes: **Roman aspect of our god of the Underworld, Hades, but Apollo was getting kind of teary-eyed when he told me this one and he doesn't even like Hades so I don't know. also what does Hades have to do with astronomy? he is like the least astronomy-related god there is, honestly.]

"_Amazing Grace_." [recorded 1369 A.D. - Muse of Hymns, Polyhymnia; **notes: **if he was getting "teary-eyed" at "Pluto", he was full-out crying on this one.]

"_I'm bringing sexy back." _[recorded 1400 A.D. - Muse of Song, Euterpe; **notes: **I asked Apollo where sexy went if it's going to be brought back and he got really annoyed and was like, "JT'S GOING TO BRING IT BACK, TERPE, WRITE IT DOWN." who/what "JT" is is not currently known.

"_The Sonnets." _[recorded 1420 A.D. - Muse of Love Poetry, Erato; **notes: **he also went on to say, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and I'll admit that kind of turned me on.]

"_Victoria the Great." _[recorded 1501 A.D. - Muse of History, Clio; **notes: **...but there are a lot of Victorias? how are we even defining "great" nowadays? because a lot of Henry VIIIs biographers are currently recording him as "great" and yeeeeah I'm not so convinced.]

"_The Hangover." _[recorded 1501 A.D. - Muse of Comedy, Thalia; **notes: **I know Dionysus recently coined this term to refer to the state one is in the day after getting "shit-faced" drunk. I definitely see how this could be funny.]

"_Damn, you're a sexy bitch, damn girl." _[recorded 1678 A.D. - Muse of Song, Euterpe; **notes: **yeah, I don't get paid enough.]

"_Sexting." _[recorded 1679 A.D. - Muse of Love Poetry, Erato; **notes: **we don't get paid at all.]

"_You're a virgin that can't drive." _[recorded 1834 A.D. - Muse of Comedy, Thalia; **notes: **I am so done.]

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	3. Deep Into the Abyss

**Author's Note: **Here's some Hades/Seph, my Olympian OTP. And Orpheus for good measure. Dedicated to burst-ofSILENCE, who wanted some Orpheus and who I'm continually converting to the elite group of Hades/Seph shippers. Enjoy!

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Despite popular belief, Persephone and Hades have a very happy marriage. They would quite possibly have _the _best Olympian marriage if it weren't for Psyche and Eros, those adorable idiots. And yeah, Dionysus and Ariadne are cute, but she wasn't always a goddess, so they're disqualified. And Persephone thinks it's safe to say that she and Hades beat Hercules and Hebe, and they _definitely _beat Aphrodite and Hephaestus. And, like, does she even need to mention Zeus and Hera? No contest.

As such, they really don't fight a lot. Playful banter, totally, and quips abound. Sarcasm is basically the official language of the Underworld. But actual fighting? Surprisingly rare.

So Persephone's not really sure how this disagreement turned argument turned full-out yelling match right in the middle of the throne room happened, but she's about five seconds away from blaming the fact that she has to go back to Olympus in a couple of days, because _shit_, this is the time they're supposed to be spending having _lots _of sex.

And she's kind of running out of argumentative tactics. Like, what are they fighting about? All she knows is that she's mad and weirdly turned on and no he did _not _just say it's inappropriate to adorn the judgement room with flowers, oh _fuck no_.

She's really grasping for insults now. _"Your cape's dumb!" _crosses her mind but it seems both childish and weirdly personal, so she cans it. Maybe something about black marble being tacky….

"Excuse me, my lord?"

Both Persephone and Hades whip their heads in the direction of the voice. It's Thanatos, standing in the entrance of the throne room with a quivering mortal man, holding one of those weird wooden instruments Apollo likes so much. A leroy? Lyon? _Whatever_.

"Yes?" Hades grinds out, fists clenched.

"This man has made his way into the Underworld."

"That tends to happen, yes."

"And he's not dead."

"What."

"Quite." Thanatos gives a slight nod. "Apparently his wife died and he has come to retrieve her."

Persephone's ready to sit this guy down and have a Birds and the Bees: Death Edition talk with him, but that is kind of sweet, she has to admit. Why bring your leroy with you, though? Seems burdensome.

"_How_?" Hades snaps.

"Apparently, he has the ability to play his instrument so beautifully that the gates to the Underworld opened for him." Thanatos, always the debbie downer, seems doubtful.

Hades is opening his mouth to say something but Persephone cuts him off. "How'd she die?"

The man looks extremely nervous, but answers, "A satyr started chasing her and she got bitten by a snake."

Persephone nods knowingly. "That'll happen." Hades gives her a look and she sticks her tongue out at him. "Anyway, you can take your wife."

Hades splutters beside her. "_No_, he may definitively _not _take his wife."

"Oh, really? Sounds fairly hypocritical considering you just _took _yours," she snaps in return, impressed by her own quick thinking.

Hades splutters some more. "One may not simply bring a loved one back from the _dead_."

"Dionysus did, with his mother!"

"Well." Hades shifts uncomfortably. "He's a god."

"Oh, so we're prejudiced now, are we?" She crosses her arms, _tsk_ing disapprovingly.

"Persephone, this is ridiculous, and you know it!" He throws up his hands, exasperated.

"And now _I'm _ridic -"

And then the oddest thing happens. The most beautiful noise Persephone has ever heard begins echoing off the walls of the throne room, filling her ears overwhelmingly. She's pretty sure she's swaying on the spot and are her eyes filling with _tears_?

The man stops playing his instrument, and Persephone wipes at the back of her eyes with her hand. The last time she felt this emotional was when Apollo told her about his idea for a story about five kids in detention who are all really different but bond emotionally as the day goes on and realize they're not so different, and then proceeded to tell her that it wouldn't happen for another couple thousand years.

"That was - most untoward," Hades says from beside her, voice choked up.

"So untoward," Persephone agrees, still wiping tears from her eyes.

"Just -" Hades gives a general wave of his hand, clearing his throat…masculinely. "Take your wife and go."

The man nods once, determined to take the offer before the god of the Underworld comes down from his emotional high, and turns on his heel, following Thanatos out the door.

"Just make sure you don't look behind you when you're ascending!" Hades calls after them, loudly.

A few beats pass, Persephone and Hades standing beside each other uncomfortably. She's feeling a lot fonder towards Hades ever since a minute ago when that mortal played that instrument like he was born to do it, and she knows she's going to be really depressed all summer if she leaves the Underworld still in a fight with her husband.

So, she decides to be the bigger person, and break the proverbial ice.

"He's totally gonna look back."

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	4. This Place Is Too Cold for Hell

**Author's Note: **Another one with the Underworld gang. Written for 's prompt: "Hades deals with hell freezing over -_literally_," or something along those lines. This one's somewhat less silly and also longer than the other installments of this fic thus far, but it's definitely still a part of the series. Enjoy!

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On Persephone's first return to Hades - the second winter - Demeter plagued the Underworld with just that: a freezing, relentless winter. (A fact which centuries later, and much to Demeter's amusement, inspired Dante's vision of a cold Hell.)

She'd never liked Hades, and been working on the idea for a while; been mulling it over even before the lowly bastard had the gall to take her Kore from her, but afterwards she had truly found herself set on giving him this particular gem of a predicament. However, the unique aspects of the Underworld - a key one being that it didn't really have _weather_ - served as roadblocks, and all in all her brilliantly devious plan proved unfortunately difficult.

But Demeter feared not. For she knew something about herself that many forgot, and often at their own peril; she was not just the goddess of Agriculture, as wonderful and truly underappreciated as that was. Oh no, she was so, _so _much more than that. If one were to look at her throne, which sits gloriously upon Olympus, closely enough to see the finer details and engravings etched upon it with sacred ink millennia ago, they would see, in very fine print, waaaaay under all the other common titles, the following:

_Demeter Thesmophoros: goddess of determinedness, and fucking shit up in far classier ways than some other female Olympians she could mention. _

So, with some hard work, elbow grease, and a lot of bargaining with Circe over the secrets to darker and somewhat questionable magic, Demeter had made her way by the end of Persephone's first six month return to Olympus.

And while it was truly glorious and probably the greatest prank ever played by anyone ever, as many on Olympus agreed, Demeter felt that too many overlooked the stunning poetic justice of it all. But still, she would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy her customary response every time some god asked her about her achievement: a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, a vague gesture with her wine glass-holding hand, and a simple, "I made Hell freeze over."

**-o-**

Meanwhile, Hades was excessively displeased.

The Underworld had dissolved into chaos, and as if his workday wasn't already packed enough with absurd trials and tests to his sanity, he now had to delegate a dozen more duties so as to keep some _semblance _of order until the larger issue was somehow resolved. Having to distribute blankets to those in the Fields of Asphodel as well as the newcomers who were still waiting at the gates was not just inconvenient, it was quite possibly massively inappropriate! Who knew how many of the waiting dead were sociopathic murderers and rapists that would be sent to the Fields of Punishment? Hades certainly wasn't distributing blankets and earmuffs to those already suffering their punishments; in fact, that was proving to be the only upside to his domain freezing over: new and unique additions to the trials of those who led less than exemplary lives before their deaths. Tantalus was still suffering his truly clever punishment of being within hand's reach of food and water and yet never being able to enjoy it, but with the addition of being stuck in the middle of a now-frozen pool of water. And Hades couldn't wait to see how Sisyphus faired his repeated attempts at pushing that ridiculous boulder up that ridiculous hill, now with the added effects of the hill being slick with ice.

It was all rather hilarious, actually.

Hades amusement was short-lived, however. Just the thought of Charon and even more hoards of the waiting dead being stranded on the far end of the now-frozen river Styx was enough to send him back into a dark cloud of frustration. Hades had received a message from Charon almost immediately after this…_Ice Age _hit his domain, asking how he should ferry the newly dead across the river under the current circumstances, and Hades was _this close _to telling him to just ice skate them all across, for all he cared.

It had taken Hades about 0.1 seconds to realize what had happened and _who _had made it happen after the frozen tundra had hit, and as much as it pained him he couldn't say he was surprised. He'd never really liked Demeter much, but that was mainly because she'd always seemed to absolutely _loathe _him, even before the business with Persephone.

He'd have been a fool to have not expected further retribution from Demeter, but to be perfectly honest, he hadn't expected it quite so soon, and he certainly hadn't expected _this_. How did she even pull this off? Yes, her transformation of the mortals' land from plentiful crops to barren wastelands during her daughter's, er, disappearance had been extreme and unexpected, but at least it had made _sense_. How she had managed to spread her powers to _his _domain was beyond him, and it not only made him angry, it made him uncomfortable. He'd ruled his land for a very long time with little to no incident - better than his brothers could say - and such a breach in the very fabric of its being was startling to say the least.

As Hades walked back to the castle his boots crunched in the snow that was now underfoot; he shook his head, muttering under his breath to himself. He would probably have to bring this whole affair to Olympus, but he didn't want to be too rash. He knew Persephone loved her mother and he didn't wish for his wife to feel that she was the cause of further animosity between the himself and Demeter. Things had been somewhat...rocky between himself and his new wife since her return, but overall he thought things had been going well. And however unsure he felt about Persephone's feelings or how to approach her much of the time, he knew that the last thing he wanted was to overreact to what was truly a ridiculous, run-of-the-mill Olympian situation, and cause trouble of any sort with Persephone in the process. And so, pulling his fur-lined cloak tighter around himself - it really was absurdly cold - he passed back under the gates to his palace, intent on finding Thanatos and hashing out what the next plan of action was.

When he came to the throne room, he found Persephone, Hecate, and Thanatos sitting on the steps that lead up to his and his wife's thrones; they were all wrapped in fur-lined cloaks and sitting closer than he thought they all normally would, apparently for heat. Thanatos and Hecate were engaged in what looked like their usual correspondence: Hecate firing off her words assuredly and Thanatos looking rather flustered in response. Persephone was looking back and forth between the two of them amusedly - Hades' heart clenched at this. He had been hugely glad and relieved when it had become quickly apparent that she got along with Thanatos and Hecate, even to the point of genuine friendship, it would appear.

"There he is," Hecate said, a little louder as he approached. "We were just talking about you."

Hades made a deliberate attempt to not show how unsettled he was by that prospect. "Oh?"

"Yes, yes," Hecate said, in that smooth, self-assured voice of hers. "And how very predictable this whole ordeal is of you."

Hades started. "Excuse me?"

"Our lord, always stirring up trouble - completely unpredictable and wild." Hecate shook her head, as if massively disappointed in him. "How long must the madness go on? _When will you be_ _satisfied_?"

"I believe Hecate is employing sarcasm, my lord," Thanatos cut in.

"Yes, I'm aware of that now," Hades said, rolling his eyes. Glancing towards Persephone, he saw that she still looked amused, a slight twinkle in her eyes, a flush on her cheeks. She had a pair of earmuffs on over her long blond hair, and she was hugging her legs to herself - she looked lovely, actually. He realized he was staring when her eyes flickered to his.

Hades broke his gaze, cleared his throat, and looked to Thanatos and Hecate. "So - any ideas as how to handle our current predicament?"

Hecate waved a hand and her notepad appeared before her. "I'm already on it." She held up her notes for the group to see, displaying what looked like a series of complicated mathematical equations. "There's dark magic in this spectacular - if I say so myself - curse. Lady Demeter probably consulted Circe or Medea. Honestly, I'm a little offended she didn't come to _me_."

Ignoring the borderline-treasonous remarks made by Hecate, Hades took the notes from her, analyzing them closer.

"Isn't this _algebra_?" he inquired after a few moment, looking at her dubiously.

Hecate took the papers back, holding them protectively. "Algebra and dark magic are very closely linked." She nodded. "The mortals don't know this yet, but they will." She gave a dark laugh. "Oh, they will."

"How long will it take you to complete the counter-curse, then?" Hades asked.

"Not long. In the meantime we'll all just have to bundle up and cuddle up, I suppose." She threw a wink at Thanatos, who would have blushed, Hades was sure, if he didn't have a title such as God of Death to live up to. Instead he justed shifted somewhat uncomfortably.

An uncomfortable silence followed. A few moment passed, and Hades was ready to depart and see to Charon or something, but Persephone spoke, catching him off-guard.

"Did you see Sisyphus?" she said, looking at each of their faces in turn, smiling shyly. "He keeps slipping..." she trailed off, as though uncertain that her amusement was founded.

However, Thanatos, Hecate, and Hades were already smiling.

"Oh, yes," Hecate laughed. "I'm tempted to leave the Underworld in this state just for that continual amusement."

Hades gave her a look. "I don't think it'll be necessary to go _that _far," he said. "But we may have to alter the exact terms of his punishment after this all blows over…"

Hecate shrugged and Thanatos raised his eyebrows in agreement, Persephone laughing softly.

"Well, I need to go see to Charon's current dilemma," Hades said, nodding to the group. He wasn't sure how much of a medium between casual and formal he should strike, or even how to do so. "Attempt to go about your days as...normally as possible."

As he was about to turn, Persephone stood, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself. "I'll go with you." He looked at her, surprised, and she added, "If you don't mind."

"Of course not," he said. After a moment's hesitation he held out his arm to her, and she descended from the step she'd been sitting on, taking it and walking out of the throne room with him, leaving Hecate and Thanatos on the steps.

"Look at those crazy kids go," Hecate said once they were gone. "I'd dare to say they may even -" she leaned in closer to Thanatos, bringing her lips to his ear "- _like _each other."

Thanatos leaned back, meeting her eyes as steadily as he could in such close proximity. "You are massively inappropriate."

"You wouldn't know what to do with me if I weren't."

"I'll dare to imagine."

"Well," Hecate said, shrugging, "I suppose we'll never know."

"I suppose not."

"Or at least, not until hell freezes over." She met his eyes quickly, and he immediately groaned, seeing exactly where she was going with this. "Or apparently not! Ha-ha-ha!"

"You've been waiting to use that all day, haven't you?" Thanatos sighed.

"Thanny, please - I've been waiting to use that my _entire life_."

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